Homecoming
by AquilaKate
Summary: The team recovers from Kensi's unexpected leave of absence, and unravels the mysteries of her return.
1. Callen

AN: This will hopefully be a four parter, with chapters that run like this: Callen (After), Sam (During), Kensi (During), and Deeks (After).

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Really.

**Homecoming**

From experience, Callen knows nameless calls to his personal cell phone generally originate from one of two categories. People with the wrong number looking for that Thai place in Marina Del Rey, and operatives foreign or domestic interested in recruiting/torturing/killing him. Either way, it's necessary to excuse himself from their latest briefing to take it, so he tosses a "don't trace this" kind of glare to Eric and Nell and steps out for a minute. He figures he has about thirty seconds before the caller loses interest and hangs up, leaving him enough time to swing into the privacy of the empty armory before answering.

"Yeah?"

On the other end, breathing. Shallow, hesitant breathing. So, no, not a potential pad Thai customer, which is a shame because that's the closest thing he has to a best case scenario.

"Hello?" he tries again, not sure what he's expecting, and not entirely ready to give up on the wrong number theory.

"G?"

The familiar voice is scratchier than it was when he last heard it, six weeks ago. His _own_ breathing comes to an ill-advised standstill. There are a lot of questions he should be asking right now, but one in particular needs to come before the rest. "Where are you?"

More breathing, and he struggles with the fact that he can't do anything to force an answer over the phone. Too many adrenaline-filled seconds tick by before he hears anything from the other end. When it finally comes, the answer is whispered and unsure, making him press the phone tighter against his ear, as if that would make it clearer. "The boathouse."

_Relief_, plain and simple. It shouldn't be possible to be feeling this much relief and still carry so much tension, but Callen's giving it a shot.

"Stay there," he orders, bursting out of the armory and moving at what could best be described as a frenetic jog towards the desks. "I'm coming, Kens."

* * *

Deeks is going to go over the edge when he hears that he wasn't informed within milliseconds of his partner's phone call, but Callen knows that he would have insisted on coming with him, which can't happen. He needs just a few minutes to lose his temper with his junior agent before her watchdog of a partner steps in and puts a stop to it. _Six weeks_ she's been off the grid, with no warning, save a cryptic sentence to a bewildered Nell, who was the only one present at the Mission as late as it was on the night Kensi took off. If there will ever be an occasion where it's okay to pull rank and pitch a full blown fit, it is _right now_.

But the minute he sees her, he knows he won't be able to do it.

She's sitting on the table, legs dangling off the side, with her arms wrapped so tightly around herself that he can almost see her nails cutting into her skin. When he steps in front of her, she doesn't make eye contact, but she does somewhat unfurl herself out the tight position she'd been hunched into. Callen swallows, but doesn't say anything, taking a minute to just _look_ at her.

Her feet are shredded, dirt and blood covering what are surely nasty cuts, chipped nail polish shimmering blue through the grime. He wonders where her shoes are, if she even wore any to get to the boathouse, but stops. Because, picturing Kensi wandering barefoot through downtown Los Angeles? _So_ not somewhere he wants to go today. But from the look of the gravel stuck to her skin, he gets the feeling that he already has his answer. There are deep red rings around her wrists, rough around the edges but still well-defined. Cuffs? She's been cuffed? Pursed lips are sucked against clenched teeth when he sees the cluster of scratches concentrated in the area where the lock must have been. She'd tried to pick it, but only after she'd tugged against the metal hard enough to leave bruises that still look fresh.

His eyes move up and glide over familiar long, tan limbs that are bruised and splotchy. Yellow and green. They're thinner, and she's lost muscle tone, but it's not so bad that she won't be able to get it back. He can tell easily because she's barely dressed. Navy blue sweats cling to her legs just above the knee, and her grungy, white sports bra leaves her stomach exposed. Which is where he spots the large patch of stained gauze that can't possibly be hiding anything good. Her face is more or less untouched, with the exception of the still-dark bruising that creates a shadow on the left side, from her chin to her cheekbone. He'd be relieved, but he knows that the lack of injury more likely results from the desire to keep her pretty to look at than any compassion on her assailant's part.

This is probably not the way he should be handling things, staring at her like she's some sort of Chechen code that he's trying to decipher, but she's yet to say anything, and he's not really sure what to say, himself. Callen wants her to speak. To lose her temper or make a corny joke that no one will laugh at, at least, not for the right reasons. Before Deeks came along, _Kensi_ was the overly talkative one, and he wants that back. Just from cataloging injuries, he has jagged pieces of a story that he'll probably never know completely. That won't keep him from trying, though.

So, for now, he lets it go and opens his arms to wait for her to lean into one of the only hugs that he's ever initiated.

Kensi stays stiff in his grasp, but it doesn't matter because she's _there, _and _not_ dead, and _not_ mangled in a heap of a car that she drove like a maniac, and _not_ in some foreign prison cell in a country that was the host to her latest "sticky situation". Sometimes he's amazed that she manages to keep out of trouble, even under Hetty's watchful eye, and he knows that the odds of her safe return were getting slimmer everyday. _Six weeks. _His hug tightens, probably out of some Freudian desire to wring her stubborn, team-worrying neck.

He hears a pained, little gasp and backs away to investigate. Kensi's hand flies to the gauze on her stomach.

"You want to take care of that?" he offers because it's pretty clear that she doesn't know what to do next. "Let's get you fixed up."

There's really no way to get her off the table without putting pressure on her injured feet, sans carrying her (which will _not_ be happening while she's conscious), leaving Callen to wrap a firm arm around her shoulders and watch her shuffle agonizingly across the floor. She sits gingerly on the couch, but lies back when he urges her to. When he tugs at it, her crappy patch job peels right off, revealing a wound that, without the gauze in the way, he can tell came from a knife. Rough stitches zig-zag across it, holding the widest part together. It's evident that it was far from a professional job, though there's something familiar about the pattern...

"Tell me you didn't do these yourself."

Kensi's not really even looking at him, so he decides to go with his answer anyway. Again, not somewhere he wants to go right now.

It needs to be treated, probably why she didn't call Deeks, whose first aid skills have yet to be put to the test in the field. Callen's, however, are tried and true, which he's about to prove, as soon as he finds the first aid kit. He's hesitant to turn his back on her because he has no real guarantee that she won't bolt like a startled colt as soon as he does, but he doesn't have much of a choice. So he keeps his ears on high alert while he washes his hands and takes the kit out from under the sink, and exhales when he returns to find her exactly where he left her.

A second look at the injury has him hissing through his teeth, before blowing the air back out in a long, low whistle. "Must have been some vacation."

Kensi doesn't answer. Callen gets to work.

After he cleans the wound and applies more gauze than is necessarily needed, he tries again, making a witty (in his opinion) joke about Deeks whining at the door like Monty, waiting for his master to come home. She blinks and looks up at the ceiling, completely checked out.

So he calls Hetty.

There's no tea to be had in the boathouse, but Hetty's presence has the same soothing effect as her favorite beverage would on Kensi's taut muscles. Her unnaturally stiff spine eases into a curve along the path that Hetty's hand is tracing, as it runs lightly across the younger woman's back. "My dear girl," she murmurs, "It's good to have you home."

Hetty's own posture is relaxed, and if his boss is at all shaken by her youngest agent's sudden reappearance, it doesn't show. Her face is a perfect mixture of calm and kind, which may be why she's succeeding where Callen failed. He's sure that his features are at least somewhat tainted with the emotions that he's been concealing for Kensi's sake. Lips are probably tightened in anger, eyes slightly widened with concern.

"You were in the Gal_á_pagos," Hetty explains patiently, pushing a mostly completed form in her direction. "They're lovely this time of year."

Kensi looks a little perplexed when she's handed the pen, but with a little prodding from the operations manager, she signs the leave of absence request form that's been dated six weeks earlier. Just like that, in the eyes of NCIS, she's off the hook. Not that it means anything to her teammates.

Her badge is pressed into shaking hands, her gun entrusted to Callen, who tucks it into the waistband of his jeans. Hetty places her final gift (a copy of the key to Kensi's apartment, probably made without her knowledge/permission) on the table and leaves him to wrap his jacket around the junior agent and try to talk her into the car.

In the morning, he'll call Deeks. And Sam. And some combination of the three of them will work on figuring out exactly where she's been.

But for now, he'll call the _real_ Thai place in Marina Del Rey and work on coaxing her to finish her meal.

_Baby steps._


	2. Sam

**_Six Weeks Earlier_**

Kensi has made the inexcusable mistake of running late on the one day that her partner stopped on the way to work to buy her a doughnut. Now, the rest of the team has to face the consequences and listen to Deeks go on about how he'd purchased that doughnut out of the goodness of his heart and how his ill-mannered partner has the discourtesy to let it get stale.

"Goodness of your heart, huh?" Callen smirks.

Sam keeps his features tamed, allows no signs of his own amusement to spoil their teasing. "Funny, I seem to remember Kensi walking out early last night. Seemed pretty ticked at somebody."

"Probably the same somebody that scratched her car with the very expensive watch that Hetty loaned him."

"Alright," Deeks admits slowly. "The goodness of my heart and a healthy amount of self preservation. Have _you_ ever been on the wrong side of a Kensi grudge?"

"Once or twice. Ever been on the wrong side of one of Hetty's? What'd you get her for breaking the watch?"

Deeks pales, and Sam calls it mission accomplished. He opens his laptop to proofread yesterday's case report, winces when he realizes exhaustion was clouding his judgment and he hasn't glossed over as much as he should have. Rewords s_ubject was too distracted by Agent Blye's legs to guard his briefcase. _Eliminates _threatened suspect with clerical error that would deport him to Somalia_ entirely. When he looks up again, he sees Deeks staring at his partner's empty desk, fiddling with his phone without really looking at it. His earlier complaints, Sam suspects, were more out of concern than anything else.

"She's fine, Deeks," he says finally. "If something was wrong, Hetty would be all over it."

No one needs to know that he's texted her three times, or that he and Callen have already decided to send her partner on a field trip/reconnaissance mission to her apartment if she's not in by ten. It's not that she's never been late before, but it's rare, and in their line of work it's best to anticipate the worst. Probably she's fine, but that's exactly what they thought before they received Dom's agent needs assistance alert...

Groaning, he stands and grabs his keys, gesturing for Deeks to follow him. On second thought, they'll swing by her place, now. It's not like Deeks will be able to focus until they do. Before they get far, though, Eric whistles, and the team looks up to see Hetty standing next to him, serious faced with an expression that they've learned over the years to recognize as bad news. "Gentlemen." she says gravely, "We have an issue."

* * *

In Ops, Nell details the scene from nine hours ago, when Kensi stormed into the mission, dumping her badge and gun on her desk and yelling for the analyst, who usually stays late to settle whatever it was that Hetty had her do in addition to her _actual_ job. She wavers as she describes how their cool, collected Kensi seemed nowhere in sight as her wild eyed, erratic replacement paced the space between the stairs and the desks, before informing the other woman that she was taking a leave of absence and sprinting in the other direction.

Nell called Hetty.

Hetty called Eric.

No one deemed it necessary to call them, as Callen was quick to point out.

Hetty raises her brow at his tone and politely informs him that neither technical analyst put in a request for three irritable, impatient federal agents to stand over them as they worked, so no. The team hadn't been informed. Eric clears his throat and steps in, probably concerned that Deeks is going to let loose with something he'll regret saying to his boss if no one interrupts him. "If it helps, we do have something. Kaleidoscope just came back with a facial recognition match."

The light of the room changes as Eric pulls up footage of Kensi, duffel over her shoulder, tugging a woman in a gray sweatshirt along behind her. Kensi's only visible for a few seconds before she disappears into the maze of SUV's and bad park jobs crowding the parking lot, so that ten seconds loops on repeat as her teammates watch in confusion. "This was taken outside LAX about two hours ago."

"Run the names of every person to pass through security this morning. Eliminate anyone with more than the bare minimum when it comes to documentation. No tax returns, no arrest records, no federal student loans," Callen orders, squinting at the figure next to Kensi.

"No parking tickets, no voter registration. Yeah, on it."

He copies the intimidatingly long list from the LAX server and runs it through every database NCIS has at its disposal. With each new checkpoint, the list is split in half until ninety-eight percent of the names are gone.

"We're left with two," Eric says, closing the programs and running a new one, which would pull up the DMV photos for the leftover ID's. Sure enough, there's Kensi, her picture next to a stranger's name. "Caroline and Melanie Phillips. Both have the necessary birth documentation. Social security numbers and birth certificates, which indicate that they're sisters, ages 29 and 32, but after that, they seem to drop off the face of the Earth, until this morning, when they booked a flight to leave at 0900."

Deeks snorts. "Must be some important trip. Where to?"

"Houston. Flight seems to be on schedule."

"Let's go," Callen says, already heading for the door. "We have time to intercept her at the airport."

Sam and Deeks go to follow, pausing to nod their thanks at the techs, but Eric stops them, suddenly typing furiously and looking at the screen in disbelief. "Wait," he sighs, "The Phillips sisters just booked another flight. Indianapolis, this time."

"El Paso," Nell chimes in, looking at her own tablet. "Boarding passes were issued six minutes ago."

The computer chirps with the information for six new flights, and Sam shakes his head. They have nine to choose from, with no way to tell which Kensi would board, if she was even on a plane. He would call it a safe bet to say that this was an elaborate misdirection and she took off on foot. Kensi likes control, sometimes a little too much, and being stuck in the air with no escape route or say in when and where they would land wouldn't appeal to her. "It's a dead end," he says, now certain of it. "We're better off trying to figure out who she's traveling with."

They're able to get a clear view of the woman's face from the footage, but are only able to confirm that it matches the picture on the fake license. There _is_ a resemblance to their agent, no one would be question their sister ID's, but it's not striking. They could just as easily be strangers. Still, Sam isn't putting much stock in the possibility that Kensi is this woman's captive. While she may be shorter, there's no doubt that Kensi is much more skilled at hand to hand. Besides, their body language suggests that Kensi is the one calling the shots. _That's normal, at least._

He stares at the footage, barely registering Eric's continued attempts at identifying their mystery woman as they flashed across the side of the screen. In the video, Kensi turns to glance behind her, before hurrying her companion into the gap between two Sedans.

_Where are you going, kid?_

* * *

Deeks refuses to ride with them on the way to Kensi's apartment, opting to drive himself. Which is good, because he'll have some time to think, and Sam and Callen will have a few minutes to consider the worst case scenario without getting Deeks worked up. They drive in silence, until Sam decides that he can't think about it anymore and tosses a barb in his partner's direction. "She gets this from you."

Callen blinks. "What?"

"The runnin' off thing. I'm just saying, you haven't exactly set the best example."

Callen blinks again. "Yes, Sam. Because Kensi is _so_ impressionable, and this is all my fault. She wasn't at all prone to flying off the handle when we got her."

"Glad you see it my way."

When they pull in, Deeks is inside, and the door's unlocked. They don't ask where he got a key, even though they're wondering. That's something to be saved for when Kensi's home and the partners can be tortured together. It probably would have been better if they'd arrived first because Deeks is a good partner who knows Kensi well enough to hide anything that she wouldn't want her senior agents to see. But he's as good a detective as he is a partner, so Sam doesn't doubt that he'd recognize evidence for what it was and let it be. In the end, it doesn't matter because it doesn't look like they're going to find anything of value.

"No signs of a struggle," Callen starts, flipping through a book he found on the coffee table. "At least I don't think so."

"No," Deeks confirms, "This is just what it looks like."

He sounds dejected, and Sam realizes it has been more than an hour since he's cracked a joke. "Hey," he says, urging the detective to look at him. "If we can't find her, no one can."

"That's all kinds of comforting. Thanks."

"Yeah, it is," he stresses, tampering down a rush of irritation. "It means that whoever she's running from isn't gonna catch up. She's safe."

Deeks nods, frowning at some sort of weird figurine that was sitting on the bookshelf. Sam sighs. He doesn't seem to have helped much, but the other man will bounce back. In a way, Deeks has it easier. In his eyes, Kensi is a superhero, who metabolizes sugar faster than a speeding bullet and leaps tall piles of hoarded clutter in a single bound. Sam and Callen have the burden of remembering the overeager rookie they trained from the ground up. They have faith in her abilities, but Deeks has _more_.

"We're gonna bring her home," he says finally.

They have to.

* * *

When they return to the mission, he tries to put it out of his mind, wind down before he has to go home to his family and pretend like nothing's wrong.

Reclines at his desk. Watches Callen press Kensi's abandoned badge into her partner's hand.

Plays a round of solitaire. (And loses.) Runs a search for Jane Does with mismatched eyes admitted to any hospital in the Los Angeles area. Or Houston. Or Indianapolis. Or any of the other cities she could be roaming around in.

Flips through his phone gallery and smiles at a picture of Michelle twirling their giggling daughter around the kitchen. Falters at one of Kensi pinning Deeks to the mat in the gym, a mile-wide grin stretched across her face.

But eventually, he has to go home. Has to face facts and admit that they aren't going to find her unless she wants to be found. So he grabs his keys, orders Deeks to go home, and suggests that Callen does the same. He kisses his wife and hugs his daughter, and doesn't think about a third set of brown eyes that should be glued to some trashy reality show or twinkling at the blue eyed detective that's not going to get any sleep tonight.

_Where are you going, kid? What are you running from?_

* * *

_**AN: There we go! Next chapter, we'll see what Kensi's been up to. Then we'll get our big Deeks chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and favorited the last chapter, you were all so great!**_


	3. Kensi

**AN: You guys are awesome. :) Your reviews and favorites have been blowing my mind. Thanks for sticking with this, and I hope to get our big Deeks chapter out next week. I've been having some browser issues, so if I haven't responded to your review, I did see it (and smile) and I'll keep trying to get back to you.**

Running from them is a bit like trying to solve an equation faster than her high school algebra teacher. Most everything she knows, they grilled into her during her first year at NCIS. She feels their scrutiny when she lets herself be spotted by the security cam at the airport. Squirms from their disapproval when she steals that woman's credit card to pay for their flights. It makes her cagey, and she doesn't relax until she's behind the wheel of their stolen car, inconspicuously driving away from the airport at the legal limit.

Half of her wishes that NCIS would have come thundering into the airport. That Deeks would have smirked while he cuffed her and mirandized her for the most embarrassing crime he could think of, playing it up for the onlookers. Probably Sam and Callen would have delighted in presenting her to Hetty, maybe stayed to hear her chewed out, like they so rarely get to anymore. She kind of really wants to go home.

But her team is the best. And if they can't track her down, she may have a speck of a chance of getting her friend to safety without getting them both killed.

Nina remains the ever loyal passenger. Doesn't flinch when Kensi abandons her car in a movie theater parking lot, and then blurs the boundaries of "walking distance" before she decides which vehicle they should take as a replacement. Doesn't ask questions when they go on a flight shopping spree at LAX, only to flee on foot. For once, Kensi is the sure one. The one that has it all put together. They're on her turf now, and Kensi's prepared to protect her friend just as well as Nina protected _her_.

* * *

When Kensi is fifteen, she is a sad, scared teenager, with no father and no place to go. Nina is a long time runaway that takes a liking to the feisty younger girl that flips the pimp that runs 2nd street on his ass when he propositions her. She's nearing eighteen, with five years of street experience under her belt when they meet, and she is everything Kensi needs. She guides her to a cafe that doesn't question her age and pays its dishwashers in cash. Keeps a watchful eye on her to keep her from making the same mistakes she did.

Nina has a bit of a drug problem, but makes damn sure that Kensi does not. "You can still bounce back," she insists. "You don't have to end up like me."

And bounce back she does.

She goes home. Goes to college. Gets a job at a government agency.

When Kensi is twenty-nine, she has a cell phone that doesn't show up on NCIS records. It uses the number she had before she joined NCIS, which is admittedly _stupid_ and would send Sam into a full on conniption if he ever found out. But it's the number she used when she and Jack were together, the one he would know to call, and there's no reason to think too deeply into that, thank you very much.

It's also the number that Nina uses to contact her when she runs into a bit of trouble. The story goes like this:

Boy meets girl. Boy deals drugs. Girl falls in love with boy. Probably because he gives her drugs. Girl collects money from the boy's other customers. Before she can turn it over, girl watches boy murder a Venezuelan drug runner that's been dealing on his turf, and takes off with more than fifteen thousand dollars of the boy's money.

So, maybe more than a bit of trouble.

Once Nina realizes that she's in so far over her head that she can't even see the surface anymore, she calls her old friend, who she knows is somehow involved with the government. She may not know exactly what she does, but she knows Kensi. Clever Kensi who would run with the big boys on the street at night and hunker down in the library with a mystery novel during the day.

So she makes the call. Sobs into Kensi's ear about how wrong she was. How scared she is. How Marc will find her because he _always_ finds her. _How does he always find her?_ She expects to be given advice, maybe cut a deal with the feds and be put into witness protection.

But Kensi knows that's not going to cut it. Nina needs to disappear. Because Marc is not going to let her live after what she's seen.

The problem is, civilians are notoriously bad at disappearing. One phone call to a cousin, one charge to an old credit card, and it's all over. Nina doesn't know how to pull off a successful vanishing act.

But Kensi does.

* * *

The plan is to drive up the eastern border of California towards Oregon, which is going to take more time than they should really throw away, but the move is unexpected, so it's in their favor. From there, they'll head towards Maine, to the little town she and Jack spent their first anniversary in before everything went haywire. It's going to take upwards of a week, Kensi thinks, depending on how often they stop to sleep and how difficult to follow she can make their route. It will be worth it though, because Kensi knows from experience that it's a safe place with a population that protects its own and notices everything. If the house they stayed in didn't belong to her ex-fiance's family, she thinks she might have gone back.

Besides, it was as far from Los Angeles that a person could get without leaving the continental United States. (Which they could not do. Fake passports were part of a more _exclusive_ package that Kensi wasn't sure they could afford.)

In the end it doesn't matter because things go hell about two hours outside of Reno.

Their first stop is at a motel advertising the most dedicated and discreet staff in Nevada. Probably, this is a lie. They might have gotten farther, but Kensi has gone almost twelve hours without sugar or caffeine and is developing something that's not _quite_ a twitch, but shouldn't be driven with anyway. Nina's been guiltily offering to take a turn at the wheel since hour three. She isn't even slightly tempted. For one thing, the other woman doesn't know where they're going or have any more defensive driving training than anyone else in LA. Mostly though, it's just a control thing. As in, Kensi likes control and isn't getting her recommended daily dose today, so she takes it where she can get it.

When they're getting dressed the next morning, Nina has an little meltdown and throws her locket against the wall, ranting about how the stupid thing never opened, not even the night Marc gave it to her.

Kensi blinks, before her eyes widen in horror.

_How does he always find her?_

She crushes the offending piece of jewelry under the heel of her boot, grabs Nina, and rushes them both out the door. In her head, she's comparing how far they are from LA and how long they've been stationary in the motel, reaching back to rest her hand on the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans. Before she can grasp it, something grabs _her_, and she knows her hunch was right. While she's thrashing against the hold the boulder of a man behind her has on her arms, she watches Nina back away from a tall man in business suit, who she can only assume is Marc. It takes a special kind of control freak to hide a GPS tracker in his girlfriend's necklace, and this man's smug expression tells her that he could fit the bill.

An arm that must belong to the incredible hulk slams against her throat and presses, tilting her head back so she can look her assailant in the eyes. She catches a glimpse of his tattooed neck before her forehead catches under his chin and he squeezes harder. She swings her foot back, feels her heel hit the hardness of his shin and uses her first kick as a guide to land the second one to his knee. The knee gives, and they stumble back, before he regains his footing and leans onto her back, sealing her her feet to the concrete and immobilizing her with his other arm. Nina's panicked screams make her want to fight harder, use strength that she doesn't have to break free and go to her, but her vision is flickering and she's busy trying to gasp for the oxygen that she desperately needs.

_Where's that dedicated staff now?_ she wonders as her vision gives one final surge before giving in, leaving her limp in the man's massive arms.

* * *

For a while, they stay mobile. Keep the women in the back of their van, where they're tossed and toppled into the sides, accumulating more bruises before they can even acknowledge the first ones.

They correctly identify Kensi as the more serious threat of the pair. Nina remains unrestrained, but Kensi is kept in cuffs, relying on her friend for every sip of water and bite of gas station junk food, and hating every minute of it. Once, she gets the cuffs off, because she's Kensi Blye and she's sort of bad ass, and she and Deeks practice picking locks in her living room for fun sometimes. Her speed with the lock behind her back is not even close to her normal record, but it gets the job done. Only for Damian to discover her trick and snap the finger responsible for it. It's not going to heal properly, not without medical care, but it isn't her trigger finger, so she'll get over it. She doesn't, however, ever find anything suitable to pick the lock again, which can't be a coincidence.

They don't dare move her into a motel while she's conscious. Every night, they press a rag damp with something (chloroform?) that knocks her out long enough to move her into the motel room bathroom, where she spends all her time when she's not in the van. Nina says they wrap a coat around her, pass her off as Marc's sleeping wife to any employees at the front desk. No one questions the act or suspects that under the coat, there's a knife pressed against her stomach, keeping Nina in check. Once, Damian bumps his partner on the stairs, and Marc accidentally digs the blade into her skin. It bleeds badly, soaks the grungy tile of the bathroom floor.

Nina tells her the next morning that she talks in her sleep, delirious from the drugs and the blood loss and the touch of infection that's already setting in. Calls her friend "Monty" when she runs a wet paper towel over her sweaty face. Tells her that she doesn't _want_ to go surfing this morning, insists until Nina promises that she never has to see the ocean again if she doesn't want to.

Which is ironic, because their final location is secluded shack on the beach.

Northern California? Kind of chilly, so maybe Oregon.

Marc wants his money back. And absolutely cannot find out that it's _gone_. Left in the mailbox of the woman who's credit card they've stolen. Used as payment for their fake identities. (If she ever gets out of this, she needs to work on finding a less expensive guy.) The rest was deposited into their new bank account, to be used to restart Nina's life in Maine.

But it's the only thing keeping Nina alive, so the money can't be gone.

On the bright side, it doesn't seem like they've done this before. Damian's interrogation technique is really uninspired, leaves bruises but nothing worse than anything she's had before. Nina's a real trooper through the whole thing. Whimpers through her own beatings, but screeches obscenities during Kensi's.

It's been a little over a month of this, and Kensi knows that sooner or later they're going to tired of it and either give up or take drastic measures. The money is important to Marc, but at the same time he's not making any more of it by hiding out in a safe house, devoting all his time and energy to controlling two hostages, one of whom who could potentially testify against him in a murder trial. So no, they're probably not planning on keeping them alive much longer.

However, by this point, she has something of a plan forming in her head.

Getting out of this would normally not be a big deal for Kensi. Her favorite training exercises were the ones where she got to incapacitate Callen and take off in Sam's car. But getting Nina out with her is going to be tricky.

She overhears Marc talking about doing some business the next Sunday, and figures that would be the best time to go for it. Distract Damian (Fake a seizure? Give _him_ a real one?) while Nina runs. There are two cars visible from the bathroom window, and she's pretty sure that the morons leave the keys in the ignition. She briefs Nina, who is dubious, and allows herself to think about seeing Deeks again. Sparring with Callen in the gym. Having movie marathons with her mother.

The night before it's set to go down, Marc throws a temper tantrum. Demands to know where his money is. Slams her head against the tile wall, until she _can't_ tell him because she's lost consciousness.

When she wakes up, Nina is on the floor next to her. Pale. Cold. Neck twisted at an odd angle. Not dead because Kensi couldn't let that happen to her. Not dead because this is Kensi's thing, she knows how to protect people. Not dead.

Except she is.

* * *

When Kensi is twenty-nine, she is a sad, scared federal agent with a dead friend and nothing to lose.

Damian has a gun tucked into his waistband when he comes to shove a bottle of water in her direction, before he drags her out into the living room, where Marc plans to try one more time to get his information.

When the police respond to shots fired at the shack, she is already long gone.


	4. Deeks

**AN: Tried to make this one a little more humorous as far as phrasing goes, but I don't know how it worked out. Thanks to everyone who stuck it out to the end, hope it's what you were hoping for.**

He finds out from Hetty, of all people, who tells him in a last ditch effort to get him to relinquish his partner's badge. He's been carrying it in his back pocket for (not six weeks, he's not that pathetic) a _long_ time, and it doesn't seem right to hand it over without a fight. But she gives him time off, and tells him to trust her, and suggests that he prepare himself for a house guest, which can only mean one thing. Well, two things. Tops.

But the most likely scenario involves his partner coming home.

So he goes home, too. And changes his sheets. And pretends that he's not royally pissed off to be the last one brought into the loop. This is Kensi they're dealing with. His partner. Just saying. If you ask him, he does a great job pretending, but then he's left to stew all night, waiting to hear from..._anyone_ at this point. And in the morning, he's tired. And anxious. And yes, very obviously pissed off.

Callen comes first. Doesn't bring Kensi with him, which is _so_ not a point in his favor, but he does bring a bag of her clothes and way more than the recommended daily dose of doughnuts, so that counts for something. "She's back," he says, like that wasn't something Deeks could figure out on his own. However, it _does_ make him feel better. Releases some of the tension that's been boiling in his chest for almost two months. Deeks clears his throat, and Callen looks awkwardly around the apartment. "So, uh, didn't think to read me in on this?"

"I've been busy."

Yeah, okay. Losing patience here. Has to make a joke, cool himself down. "How did you get picked to tell me? Draw the short straw?"

Callen grins. "Long one. Sam's with her at the doctor's office."

Where he will probably lose a limb. So, there's that.

"How is she?" he asks finally, because trying to work an apology out of Callen is like trying to make Hetty _giggle_ and he'd rather not waste any more time. G shrugs, tries to look nonchalant but his face doesn't come across that way, even to Deeks who never has much luck reading the unreadable Callen. "Different," he sighs, "She's different."

They pick at the doughnuts while they wait for their partners. Deeks is hesitant, doesn't want to be separated from his hand for not giving Kensi first pick, but Callen says he's already offered and been turned down. _Okay, so that's terrifying. _It's only about seven in the morning (Sam must have pulled _somebody's_ strings to get a doctor this early), and his neighbors are quiet. The two agents aren't talking either, and silence isn't really a Deeks thing, so he switches on the TV. Finds an early morning rerun of a reality show that Kensi likes. Callen stares. Deeks doesn't care. It's not like _Callen's_ partner has been missing for six weeks.

When Sam storms in, looking kind of volatile with a fresh scratch on his cheek, he's tugging a small, shaking woman that cannot possibly be his partner along behind him. Kensi doesn't look at him, keeps her head down and passes everyone else on her way to the couch. Sam has his I'm-feigning-patience-but-I-won't-be-too-broken-hearted-if-you-see-right-through-it face on as he dumps a pharmacy bag on the kitchen table. "Here you go," he hisses through an overly exaggerated fake grin that turns into a grimace as he rotates his shoulder. "Good news, she's especially charming and cooperative this morning."

He's sure no one died at the doctor's office, but probably it was a close call.

Sam writes some things down on the back of the prescription bag, repeats the doctor's orders (probably verbatim) and jabs a finger in Kensi's direction. "She has a concussion. You know what to watch for."

Callen blinks, smirking at his partner's ire and mentally praising the patron saint of straw drawing for his luck. "Did you give it to her?"

"This close," the SEAL says slowly, pinching two fingers together and tossing another frustrated look in the other agent's direction.

His fingers are pretty damn close together, so Deeks ejects them from the apartment (for Kensi's sake). Sam softens before he leaves, probably remembering his own horrible-patientesque tendencies, and squeezes Kensi's shoulder in a way that says, _"Sometimes I hate you, but you're still one of mine. Get better soon."_ Or something to that effect.

Monty takes the slamming door as the all clear to bust out of the bedroom/prison. When he see's his second favorite human, he sprints towards the couch as fast as a canine at his advanced age can possibly move. He quite literally throws himself at her, all wiggles and embarrassingly sloppy doggy kisses, which Deeks expects to be too much for someone who just got done doing whatever the hell Kensi's been doing. "Monty. Come on, man," he scolds, "The lady doesn't want-"

But apparently, Kensi _does,_ because her face is hidden in the scruff of Monty's neck, and her hands are running through his matted fur. _Huh_.

He skims the instructions Sam left on the counter, winces at the phrase "knife wound" and again at "change dressing twice per day" because that's going to go over about as well as asking Sam to doggy-sit Monty would. When he looks up, Kensi is staring at him, Monty in her lap and an unbearably _miserable_ look on her face.

"Well," he starts, not really sure where he's going from there.

"That's a deep subject." And Deeks grins because even if the voice that said it is hoarse and sad and a little unfamiliar, that's undeniably Kensi.

So they're probably going to be okay, right?

"_Well_," he starts again. "Partner. Where have you been?"

* * *

She doesn't tell him. No, surprise there.

But he obviously hasn't pushed her away because she continues to live in his apartment for the better part of three weeks.

Living with his partner is comfortable and terrifying at the same time. At times, she's Kensi, but more relaxed. Ties her up in a messy bun and dances to techno while he's trying to make breakfast. Spins through the kitchen and doesn't apologize for getting in his way. Which she does. Probably on purpose. It's But those moments are few and far between. Most of the time, she's quiet, subdued. Won't make a decision about anything, not even what they have for breakfast. (He almost always chooses chocolate chip pancakes, anyway. He knows she likes them, and he doesn't feel like he's serving her an early death on a plate, like he does with some of her other favorites.) It's not that she's indecisive, she just doesn't trust herself anymore, for whatever reason.

He's confused. And weirded out. Because Kensi is all bravado and self confidence, and without those she's sort of empty and deflated, and not really Kensi at all.

But they're working on it.

She goes with him to the Mission everyday. Doesn't actually work because she hasn't been medically cleared and Callen has decreed that the next field work she sees will be in an actual _field_. Deeks is the only one who really gets a kick out of that. Buys her gardening gloves that she doesn't even bother to laugh at before she tosses them out the window of the moving car. Sam works with her in the gym in the mornings. Arrives two hours early to do so, and because no one is ready to trust her with a set of car keys, Deeks has the pleasure waking up two hours early to drop her off. But it's okay. Really. He gets more consistent with his surf schedule, and when he arrives at the Mission for the second time, Kensi is glowing from Sam's praise and in a much better mood than she was in when she first woke up.

But when they're gone, working a case, she spends her day sparring with other agents in the gym, working herself into a cranky puddle of exhaustion that Deeks practically has to drag home. Callen lays the law down after the third time she falls asleep at her desk. Holds a morning meeting while Kensi is upstairs with Nell and Eric, discouraging any of the others from agreeing to spar with her, Sam standing nearby, looking intimidating. It leaves her with some pent up frustration at the end of the day. Secretly, he's kind of glad to see her with a little bit of fire in her, even if it's aimed at him.

If Kensi is to be believed, she doesn't have nightmares. She _does_ wake up in the middle of the night, shaking like a leaf and breathing like she's just chased a racehorse that was resisting arrest. She's almost impossible to calm down, and the only words he can ever get out of her are, "She's dead."

So, no. No nightmares. Except for every night.

It's one of the reasons he's so reluctant to accept the overnight undercover operation from the LAPD. _Accept_ probably isn't the right word to use there, because he's still technically an employee of the LAPD and if he'd like to _accept_ a paycheck every two weeks, he'd best do whatever they say. He's almost worked himself into a full blown panic attack by the time Sam and Callen show up at his door, informing him that they're staying over to eat his food and run up his electric bill and there's nothing he can do about it.

Sometimes he's grateful for his senior officers. Even if they did hang a bucket of flour over his door for when he came home.

He's tired, covered in powdery white flour, and pissed off when he realizes what happened, but he can't even yell at them because Kensi is dozing on the couch. The two full-grown federal agents use her as human noise protection, sit on the floor in front of her with two beers and matching smirks.

"Funny," he says. Doesn't mean it. _He's_ clearly the only one with a quality sense of humor on this team. Callen shrugs. "Kensi planned it. She'll be sorry that she missed it. You may have to do it again."

God help him, he considers it. He's not even that mad anymore. Same goes for the time that his coffee machine malfunctions after she's already had a particularly aggravating day and she goes after it like _it's_ the reason Hetty won't let her skip re-qualifications to get her gun back. "Whoa, whoa, it's dead," he yells, pulling her off of the sparking remains. He blinks once. _"What is wrong with you?"_

He never finds out because she huffs, takes his car keys off the hook, whistles for Monty, and goes for "a drive".

His coffee maker is broken. She stole his car. And his dog.

And for some reason, Deeks is grinning.

* * *

There isn't much to pack when they move her back to her apartment, but it takes all day to get the place clean and aired out. When she was gone, Deeks took care of it, somehow manages to make the place look like there was never a borderline hoarder living in it without throwing anything out. But he trades his house-sitting duties for counseling when Kensi moves in, so it's kind of stuffy in there when they arrive.

There's coffee that's mostly mold in the pot when they arrive, and there's probably no salvaging the machine, so they're in the same boat, there. They'll shop together, and drink _different_ adult beverages until then. They're finishing off their third one of the night, when she decides to cut the cord and kick him out. She's nervous (he is too), but it has to happen sometime. It's probably a good sign that instead of being nudged out of the nest, Kensi tries to throw _herself_ out.

But before she can push him out the door (and probably pretend to not miss him), he decides to push his luck.

"You know," he says, throwing his empty beer bottle in the trash can, "You withheld my partner from me for almost three months. I think I deserve to know why."

"Six weeks," she corrects, looking suspicious.

Deeks shrugs. "Really?"

Because the way he sees it, that lost looking woman that wouldn't even punch him properly wasn't his partner. Kensi must see it too. She sighs, and hands him another beer. Sits across from him at the kitchen table and tells him _everything, _in that hollow, detached voice that can't possibly be a sign of perfect mental health. When it's over, he's speechless, something he knows she's been trying to achieve since their first week as partners. "Wow."

Kensi nods. "Wow."

"You're not gonna do it again?" he asks finally. "Because I think Sam's like a millimeter away from having you micro-chipped."

She shrugs. (Really? Uncertainty?) And Deeks sighs. He won't let it happen that easily. If it comes down to it, she'll have a hell of a time leaving him behind. And if she somehow manages it, he'll still be there. Waiting for her to come home.


End file.
